1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally directed to a system and method for simulating and evaluating the clinical care of a patient. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a system and method for establishing a simulated environment based on electronic medical records for interactive clinical instruction in patient care. The system and method provide for the use of virtual patients profiled by electronic medical records (EMR) in simulating their clinical treatment by a plurality of simulation participants, and for the comparative evaluation of the diagnostic, therapeutic, or other treatment actions taken by a group of simulation participants on the same virtual patient. The comparative evaluation for the participants may be relative to one another as well as to an idealized course of treatment administered to a virtual patient. The system and method afford each participant the opportunity to independently undertake treatment actions upon his/her own cloned version of the virtual patient having a certain base, or starting condition indicated by its EMR. The system and method maintain and independently track the conditions of the cloned virtual patients and corresponding EMR's as they are subjected to their assigned participants' clinical treatment actions. Additions, entries, and updates made by simulation participants to the EMR of their virtual patient clones may then be examined for objective evaluation by an instructor or other overseer.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the field of interactive education, and particularly in the field of simulators and interactive clinical education, it is important to allow participants, such as physicians, surgeons, nurses, medical technicians, assistants, students, and the like, to not only learn their intended profession passively by reading and listening to books, publications, and instructors, but also to perform diagnostic and therapeutic tasks and procedures that will be critical to their eventual practice upon completion of their education. However, there is clearly a great risk that allowing students to practice on actual patients may lead to complications, accidents, mistakes, and even potentially deaths. Obviously, allowing a mere student to practice medicine on an actual living patient would be a very high risk activity—if not outright reckless. A mere student is not in possession of the experience or wisdom of a practiced professional. Thus, a catch-22 exists, whereby a student is initially unqualified and lacks the experience necessary to perform actual tasks which are needed to gain that very experience and qualification.
Thus, there is a need for a method and system for establishing a simulated environment whereby clinical patient care experiences may be gained and suitably evaluated. There is a need for interactively evaluating and instructing participants in this regard, by use of electronic medical records kept for virtual patients in an environment emulating actual clinical conditions.